You’re probably using the wrong dictionary
The thesaurus sucks. You can always tell when a writer is using a thesaurus and random words are substituted to sound smart. The problem is the thesaurus has a bad architecture. It's flat. Everything connects to everything (the original sin), and it treats every synonym as equal (they're not!). Since we don't have a hierarchy of "core words" and "s
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The problem with language models is that while they are very good at giving you the information you want, they don’t tell you what to look for in the first place. You have to figure that out yourself, and you have to learn how to be good at asking for it. This is the metaskill that has become crucial over the last few decades, when our access to in... See more
Kasra • Reading and writing in the age of language models
Always go for “close enough” and search your mind for words that have similar meanings, even if they aren’t necessarily synonymous.
Benny Lewis • Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World
To open up a word, write down four things: a word for study, the generally agreed-upon definition of that word, your thoughts on the accuracy of the definition, and a personal definition that suits your eccentric tastes.